Thought I would come in here having found a sleeper in AMERICAN, but I can see he has been mentioned plenty already. He’s still plenty unexposed and is probably well above his mark of 157 having only raced three times over fences. He needs soft ground, but if he turned up he would surely run well.

Never travelled a yard poor chap. It looked too bad to be true from early on. “American Tom” type scenario it seems. (Speaking of which, does anyone know if that horse came right after his fall last season? I really liked him).

A dramatic day on the Gold Cup trail. Given the dirty scope, I suppose the Our Duke push-outs are a bit of an overreaction. Although, as Grassy suggests, you have to worry that the effort (and the horse did stick in there quite gamely for a long way despite never travelling) might leave some sort of mark as may be the case with American Tom.

Blaklion is established as a notch or two below the Gold Cup standard so I don’t think Bristol De Mai has really done anything special, although he did show battling qualities off the bridle for the first time in a while, which will be really encouraging for his fans.

Any slim hopes for Coneygree or Cue Card seemed to fizzle out today. You’d want a decent price on either of them even lining up for the Gold Cup now.

I think the fall itself rather than the illness may have kept American Tom off LS- it was a belter poor chap. Our Duke didn’t get given a dreadfully hard time so hopefully mentally OK. Right enough I would worry about running with grubby airways causing long term damage to lungs and hope he is given plenty of time to recover.

Not sure what theyll do with douvan, vibes seem to suggest 2m, i have a feeling theyll up min to the ryanair and leave djakadam running toward the gold cup again

Will depend on things like what benie des dieux, yorkhill, un de sceux do throughout the season as arguably two of those are capable of atleast running in the CC

Common sense would say one thing though, there is absolutely no way that douvan, min and great field will all run in the CC, 2 yes that seems feasible with one being a jp horse, definitely wont be 3 as each is capable of winning at the festival, seems unlikely he would run 3 even if it is the champion chase

I can forsee yorkhill stepping up to the gold cup if faugheen returns and not coming back over hurdles

Can’t see Douvan in this. The more fences he has to jump the more the chance of tripping over those long legs. No obvious sign he’ll stay either. He’s the sole progeny of his dam so far and on the sire’s side his stock can muster just 1 victory above 2m4f. Haven’t gone back more than 1 generation so there might be some stamina evidence elsewhere.

If I were betting on Yorkhill running in a surprise race it would be the Champion Hurdle, not this where even Ruby could have trouble keeping him settled over such a trip. He’s way too fizzy for a Gold Cup imo and would be much more at home over 2 miles.

The one who’s beginning to look potential value to me is Acapella Bourgeois at around 33/1. Since he slaughtered Road to Respect that one has won a G1 and two G3s and was just beaten the other day in another G1. AB had the run of the race that day said many but that argument about him has been put forward in other races. AB is relatively unexposed and fully unexposed under a top trainer. It could be he is reliant on deep ground and a heavy ground Gold Cup is unheard of these days although it has been soft twice in the past six years.

Ryanair would be possible I suppose but there’s a much stronger chance he’ll need deep ground there and I’d say the Gold Cup will be favourite. 33/1 too big by some way, I think.

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